walkplacedistancetime #2 - No. 2: No Trace

embodiment -:- walking human movement -:- place more-less natural -:- distance time over across -:- field recording -:- poetry -:- composition -:- martin p eccles

Today’s episode is No 2: no trace” in the waters of a Northumberland River.

In the river my walking is primarily an act of walking as touching. The senses that predominantly guide my movement along the bank of the river – vision, sound and balance – are blunted; the use of two sticks turns me into a quadruped, and it is only this that allowed me to move with any confidence at all.

Whilst I ‘watch my step’ and ‘look where I am going’ the reality in the river is that I can only see and hear the river’s surface. What shapes my movement is hidden from my sight and hearing, up to a metre below the water’s surface, on the bottom of the river, and apparent only to the touch of my feet or the probing of my sticks.